Many industrial operations require the use of a sheet metal strip payout device in which coil reels of wound strip material are disposed on a rotatable platform in order to unwind or payout the strip for feeding to a processing station, such as, a stamping press or similar metal forming machines. The steel wire or flat stock is stored on pay-off reels or spools until needed, at which time strip decoilers or metal strip payout devices automatically uncoil and feed coiled wire or flat stock to the presses. The coiled steel is under high tension and is held in place on the pay-reels by holding bands.
Before the stock can be fed from the coil reel to the presses, the holding bands must be cut. Cutting the steel bands to release the coiled material is referred to an “unbounding.” When the coiled material is unbounded, if unchecked, it uncoils in a violent spring-like way placing the machine operator, other nearby employees and other machinery in danger of being struck by the uncontrolled unwinding of the coil.
Sheet metal strip-feeding apparatus having holding arms to safely hold the bound material while it is being unbound are known in the art. One such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,408 (Box et al). The apparatus described in this patent was designed to feed strip material from a wound coil to a work processing station. This apparatus is adapted for mounting a spool of coiled material onto a turntable and controlling the rotational speed of the turntable so that the wound strip material is fed to a strip processing station at regulated rates. Additionally, the apparatus is equipped with a snubber arm that is adapted to bear on the exterior of the strip coil under the urging of a constant pressure fluid cylinder. The snubber arm is a safety device to keep the wound material from “springing” out at nearby workers or machinery when the coil is unbounded. This safety device however, is of no use to any pre-existing, free-standing feeding apparatus except to the one of which it is part.
Orii, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,605, provides a coiled material looping apparatus designed to shorten the length of the primary process line of a pressing machine. To hold down the coiled material, this apparatus is equipped with a coil holding member having a roller on one end and a cylinder, operated by a pressure medium, at the other end. The cylinder exerts pressure on the roller part of the coil holding member enabling it to keep the coiled material from unwinding prematurely. However, only those having a need for such a specific use machine would be able to avail themselves of the protection provided by the hold-down that is an integral part of this invention.
An apparatus for simultaneously preparing and feeding multiple coils of strip stock into a strip processing line is disclosed by Rodriguez et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,119. This device is also equipped with coil support mechanisms that function to prevent a coil from unrestrained uncoiling. However, as this apparatus was designed to simultaneously handle multiple coils, it is necessarily complex and thus, expensive. Here too, the safety precautions provided by the hold-down of this device is available only with this device.
Thus, to take advantage of the hold-down devices that are now in the art, entire uncoiling/feed units would have to be purchased, as the hold-down mechanisms of these devices are available only as expensive accessories for their related unit, or as add-on options that can be attached only to the reel unit for which they were designed.
Clearly, there is an unmet and longfelt need for a free-standing, cost effective, hold-down device that will control the tension in coiled material as the coil reel is being unbounded. Ideally, such a hold-down would be compatible with a variety of existing uncoil/feeder models, and especially with coil reel models that do not include a hold-down mechanism in their original design.